Indian and Chinese troops were involved in a 73-day stand-off at the Doklam tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China between June to August last year. (File)

Undermining hard power in the name of world peace is wrong in the modern context, RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy said Thursday, observing that India could not have handled the Doklam crisis without hard power.

Advertising

India does not want anybody’s territory but would also not allow any other country to occupy its territory, he said.
“Hard power is necessary. Without hard power, we could not have done surgical strikes or handled (the) Doklam crisis,” Gurumurthy said at an event organised by the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF).

By the Doklam crisis, Gurumurthy was referring to the 73-day standoff in 2017 between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam – the tri-junction border between India, Bhutan, and China – after the Indian side stopped the Chinese from extending a road into territory claimed by Bhutan.

The previous year, on September 29, 2016, the Indian Army had carried out surgical strikes on seven terrorist launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) as a response to an attack on its base in Uri earlier that month.

Advertising

In this context, Gurumurthy, who is also a part-time director of the RBI, cited Emperor Ashoka, who had renounced violence after the Kalinga war. “Ashoka gave up war… he was a great man but (the) greater man was Chanakya,” he said.

Gurumurthy also said the world is ruled by some ideology or the other, but that India is ruled by philosophy. “Ideology shuts the doors to dialogue, while philosophy opens the door to discussions,” he said. He also pointed out that many people criticise Hinduism without reading the Vedas and Puranas. Gurumurthy said nature has endowed India with diversity, in terms of gods, species, animals and seasons.

“We had a different approach and we understood that all are not one, but we have always been accommodative. That is the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is one single family),” he said.